Join Host Bree Carlile as she reads the thirteenth chapter of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.

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Welcome to Bite At a Time Books, where we read you your favorite classics one Byte at a Time.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts today, we will be continuing The Three Musketeers by Alexandra Dumas 13 Monsieur Bonuses There was in all this, as may have been observed, one personage concerned of whom, notwithstanding his precarious position, we have appeared to take but very little notice.

This personage was M.

Bonus, the respectable martyr of the political and amorous intrigues which entangled themselves so nicely together at this gallant and chivalric period.

Fortunately, the reader may remember or may not remember.

Fortunately, we have promised not to lose sight of him.

The officers who arrested him conducted him straight to the Basil, where he passed trembling, before a party of soldiers who were Loading their muskets.

Thence introduced into a half subterranean Gallery, he became on the part of those who had brought him the object of the grossest insults and the harshest treatment.

The officers perceived that they had not to deal with a gentleman, and they treated him like a very peasant.

At the end of half an hour or thereabouts, a clerk came to put an end to his tortures, but not to his anxiety, by giving the order to conduct M.

Bonus to the Chamber of Examination ordinarily prisoners were interrogated in their cells, but they did not do so with em bonisso.

Two guards attended.

The Mercer, who made him traverse a court and enter a corridor in which were three Sentinels opened a door and pushed him unceremoniously into a low room where the only furniture was a table, a chair, and a commissary.

The commissary was seated in the chair and was riding at the table.

The two guards led the prisoner toward the table, and, upon a sign from the commissary, drove back so far as to be unable to hear anything.

The commissary, who had till this time held his head down over his papers, looked up to see what sort of person he had to do with this commissary was a man of very repulsive mean, with a pointed nose, with yellow and salient cheekbones, with eyes small but keen and penetrating, and an expression of countenance, resembling at once the polecat and the Fox, his head supported by a long and flexible neck, issued from his large black robe, balancing itself with a motion very much like that of the tortoise.

Thrusting his head out of his shell, he began by asking Monsieur Bonacio his name, age, condition, and abode.

The accused replied that his name Ujaki Mikelbadisiou, that he was 51 years old, a retired Mercer, and lived Rue de Foussier's, Number 14.

The commissary, then, instead of continuing to interrogate him, made him a long speech upon the danger there is for an obscure citizen to meddle with public matters.

He complicated this extortion by an exposition in which he painted the power and the deeds of the Cardinal, that incomparable Minister, that conqueror of past ministers, that example for ministers to come deeds and power which none could thwart with impunity.

After this second part of his discourse, fixing his Hawk's eye upon poor Bonaciu, he bade him reflect upon the gravity of his situation.

The reflections of the Mercer were already made.

He cursed the instant when Monsieur Laporte formed the idea of marrying him to his Goddaughter, and particularly the moment when that Goddaughter had been received as lady of the linen to Her Majesty.

At bottom, the character of Monsieur Bonusieux was one of profound selfishness mixed with sordid avarice, the whole seasoned with extreme cowardice.

The love with which his young wife had inspired him was a secondary sentiment and was not strong enough to contend with the primitive feelings we have just enumerated.

Bonasfew indeed reflected on what had been said to him, but Monsieur commentary said he calmly believe that I know and appreciate more than anybody the merit of the incomparable eminence by whom we have the honor to be governed.

Indeed?

Asked the Commissary with an air of doubt, if that is really so, how come you in the Basil?

How I came there, or rather why I am there, replied Bonaciu.

That is entirely impossible for me to tell you, because I don't know myself, but to a certainty it is not.

For having knowingly at least disobliged Monsieur the Cardinal, you must nevertheless have committed a crime, since you are here and accused of high treason.

Of high treason, cried Bonacia, terrified of high treason.

How is it possible for a poor Mercer who detests Eugeneauts and who abhors Spaniards to be accused of high treason?

Consider, Monsieur, the thing is absolutely impossible, Monsieur Bonusieu, said the Commissary, looking at the accused as if his little eyes had the faculty of reading to the very depths of hearts.

You have a wife?

Yes, Monsieur, replied the Mercer in a tremble, feeling that it was at this point affairs were likely to become perplexing.

That is to say, I had one.

What?

You had one.

What have you done with her, then?

If you have her no longer?

They have abducted her, Monsieur.

They have abducted her.

Ah, Bonus, you inferred from this Ah, that the affair grew more and more intricate.

They have abducted her, added the commissary.

And do you know the man who has committed this deed?

I think I know him.

Who is he?

Remember that I affirm nothing, Monsieur the Commissary, and that I only suspect.

Whom do you suspect?

Come, answer freely.

Monsieur Bonacia was in the greatest perplexity possible.

Had he better deny everything or tell everything by denying all, it might be suspected that he must know too much to avow.

By confessing all, he might prove his goodwill.

He decided then to tell all I suspect, said he, a tall, dark man of lofty carriage who has the heir of a great Lord.

He has followed us several times, as I think, when I have waited for my wife at the wicket of the Louvre to escort her home, the Commissary now appeared to experience a little uneasiness.

And his name said he has to his name.

I know nothing about it.

But if I were ever to meet him, I should recognize him in an instant.

I will answer for it.

Were he among 1000 persons, the face of the commissary grew still darker.

You should recognize him among a thousand.

Say you, continued he.

That is to say, cried Bonuseux, who thought he had taken a false step.

That is to say you have answered that you should recognize him, said the Commissary.

That is all very well, and enough for today.

Before we proceed further, someone must be informed that you know the ravisher of your wife.

But I have not told you that I know him, cried Bonusieu in despair.

I told you, on the contrary.

Take away the prisoner, said the Commissary to the two guards.

Where must we place him?

Demanded the chief.

In a dungeon which, good Lord, in the first one handy, provided it is safe, said the Commissary with an indifference which penetrated poor Bonacia with horror.

Alas, Alas, said he to himself, misfortune is over my head.

My wife must have committed some frightful crime.

They believe me her accomplice and will punish me with her.

She must have spoken.

She must have confessed everything.

A woman is so weak a dungeon.

The first he comes to that's it a night is soon past, and tomorrow to the wheel, to the gallows.

Oh my God, my God, have pity on me without listening the least in the world to the lamentations of Monsieur Bonuseu.

Lamentations to which, Besides, they must have been pretty well accustomed.

The two guards took the prisoner, each by an arm, and led him away, while the commissary wrote a letter in haste and dispatched it by an officer in waiting.

Bonaciu could not close his eyes, not because his dungeon was so very disagreeable, but because his uneasiness was so great.

He sat all night on his stool, starting at the least noise.

And when the first rays of the sun penetrated into his Chamber, the dawn itself appeared to him to have taken funeral tents all at once.

He heard his bolts drawn and made a terrified bound.

He believed they were coming to conduct him to the scaffold, so that when he saw merely and simply instead of the executioner, he expected only his commissary of the preceding evening, attended by his clerk, he was ready to embrace them both.

Your affair has become more complicated since yesterday evening, my good man, and I advise you to tell the whole truth, for your repentance alone can remove the anger of the Cardinal.

Why, I am ready to tell everything, cried Bonus.

At least all that I know.

Interrogate me.

I entreat you.

Where is your wife in the first place?

Why did not I tell you she had been stolen from me?

Yes, but yesterday at 05:00 in the afternoon, thanks to you, she escaped.

My wife escaped?

Cried Bonus.

Oh, unfortunate creature, Monsieur, if she has escaped, it is not my fault, I swear.

What business had you then to go into the Chamber of Monsieur D'Artagnan, your neighbor with whom you had a long conference during the day?

Yes, Monsieur commentary.

Yes, that is true, and I confess that I was in the wrong.

I did go to Monsieur D'Artagnan.

What was the aim of that visit?

To beg him to assist me in finding my wife.

I believed I had a right to endeavor to find her.

I was deceived, as it appears, and I ask your pardon.

And what did Monsieur D'Artagnan reply?

Monsieur D'Artagnan promised me his assistance, but I soon found out that he was betraying me.

You impose upon justice.

Monsieur D'Artagnan made a compact with you, and in virtue of that compact put to flight the police who had arrested your wife and has placed her beyond reach.

Monsieur D'Artagnan has abducted my wife.

Come now, what are you telling me?

Fortunately, Monsieur D'Artagnan is in our hands, and you shall be confronted with him.

By my faith I ask no better, cried Bonaciu.

I shall not be sorry to see the face of an acquaintance.

Bring in the Monsieur D'Artagnan, said the commissary to the guards.

The two guards led in Athos, Monsieur D'Artagnan, said the commissary, addressing Athos.

Declare all that passed yesterday between you and Monsieur.

But, cried Bonisseur, this is not Monsieur D'Artagnan whom you show me.

What not?

Monsieur D'Artagnan, exclaimed the commissary.

Not the least in the world, replied Bonaciu.

What is this gentleman's name?

Asked the commissary.

I cannot tell you.

I don't know him.

How?

You don't know him?

No.

Did you never see him?

Yes, I have seen him, but I don't know what he calls himself.

Your name, replied the Commissary Athos, replied the Musketeer.

But that is not a man's name.

That is the name of a mountain, cried the poor questioner, who began to lose his head.

That is my name, said Athos quietly.

But you said that your name was D'Artagnan.

Who I?

Yes, you, somebody said to me.

You are Monsieur D'Artagnan, I answered.

You think so?

My guards exclaimed that they were sure of it.

I did not wish to contradict them.

Besides, I might be deceived.

Monsieur, you insult the Majesty of justice.

Not at all, said Athos calmly.

You are Monsieur D'Artagnan.

You see, Monsieur, that you say it again.

But I tell you, Monsieur Commentary, cried Bonuses in his turn, there is not the least doubt about the matter.

Monsieur D'Artagnan is my tenant, although he does not pay me my rent, and even better on that account ought I to know him.

Monsieur D'Artagnan is a young man, scarcely 19 or 20, and this gentleman must be 30 at least.

Monsieur D'Artagnan is in Monsieur de Sasarts guards, and this gentleman is in the company of Monsieur de Travil's Musketeers.

Look at his uniform, Monsieur Commentary.

Look at his uniform.

That's true, murmured the Commissary Pardo.

That's true.

At this moment the door was opened quickly, and a messenger introduced by one of the gatekeepers of the Basil gave a letter to the Commentary.

Oh, unhappy woman, cried the Commentary.

How?

What do you say?

Of whom do you speak?

It is not of my wife, I hope.

On the contrary, it is of her.

Yours is a pretty business.

But, said the agitated Mercer, do me the pleasure, Monsieur, to tell me how my own proper affair can become worse by anything my wife does while I am in prison, because that which she does is part of a plan converted between you of an infernal plan.

I swear to you, Monsieur Commissary, that you are in the profoundest error, that I know nothing in the world about what my wife had to do, that I am entirely a stranger to what she has done, and that if she has committed any follies, I renounce her.

I objure her.

I curse her, Bah, said Athos to the Commissary, if you have no more need of me, send me somewhere.

Your Monsieur Bonus is very tiresome.

The Commissary designated by the same gesture, Athos and Bonuses, let them be guarded more closely than ever.

And yet, said Athos, with his habitual calmness, if it be Monsieur D'Artagnan who is concerned in this matter, I do not perceive how I can take his place.

Do as I bade you, cried the Commissary, and preserve absolute secrecy, you understand?

Athos shrugged his shoulders and followed his guard silently while Monsieur Bonusieu uttered lamentations enough to break the heart of a Tiger.

They locked the Mercer in the same dungeon where he had passed the night and left him to himself during the day bonus, youpt all day like a true Mercer, not being at all a military man, as he himself informed us in the evening about 09:00.

At the moment he had made up his mind to go to bed, he heard steps in his corridor.

These steps drew near to his dungeon.

The door was thrown open and the guards appeared.

Follow me, said an officer who came up behind the guards.

Follow you?

Cried Bonicewe.

Follow you at this hour?

Oh my God, where we have orders to lead you.

But that is not an answer.

It is nevertheless the only one we can give.

Ah, my God, my God, murmured the poor Mercer.

Now indeed I am lost.

And he followed the guards who came for him mechanically and without resistance.

He passed along the same corridor as before, crossed one court, then a second side of a building.

At length, at the gate of the entrance court, he found a carriage surrounded by four guards on horseback.

They made him enter this carriage.

The officer placed himself by his side.

The door was locked and they were left in a rolling prison.

The carriage was put in motion as slowly as a funeral car.

Through the closely fastened windows, the prisoner could perceive the houses in the pavement that was all but true.

Parisian as he was, Bonaciu could recognize every street by the milestones, the signs and the lamps.

At the moment of arriving at St.

Paul, the spot where Suches were condemned at the Basil were executed, he was near fainting and crossed himself twice.

He thought the carriage was about to stop there.

The carriage, however, passed on.

Further on, a still greater terror seized him on passing by the Cemetery of St.

John, where state criminals were buried.

One thing, however, reassured him.

He remembered that before they were buried their heads were generally cut off, and he felt that his head was still on his shoulders.

But when he saw the carriage take the way to Lagrave, when he perceived the pointed roof of the Hotel de Ville and the carriage passed under the arcade, he believed it was over with him.

He wished to confess to the officer, and upon his refusal uttered such pitiable cries that the officer told him that if he continued to deafen him thus, he should put a gag in his mouth.

This measure somewhat reassured Bonusieux.

If they meant to execute him at Lagrave, it could scarcely be worthwhile to gag him as they had nearly reached the place of execution.

Indeed, the carriage crossed the fatal spot without stopping.

There remained, then, no other place to fear but the traitor's cross.

The carriage was taking the direct road to it.

This time there was no longer any doubt.

It was at the traitor's cross that lesser criminals were executed.

Bonus Ewe had flattered himself in believing himself worthy of St.

Paul or the place to grieve.

It was at the traitor's cross that his journey and his destiny were about to end.

He could not yet see that dreadful cross, but he felt somehow as if it were coming to meet him.

When he was within 20 paces of it, he heard a noise of people and the carriage stopped.

This was more than poor Bonaciu could endure.

Depressed as he was by the successive emotions which he had experienced, he uttered a feeble groan which might have been taken for the last sigh of a dying man and fainted.

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